Incoming ESR President Lorenzo Derchi looks forward to celebrating an ECR milestone in 2019
By Julia Patuzzi
As has been our tradition for a few years now on the final day of our congress, we already look ahead to next year’s ECR. We therefore spoke with Prof. Lorenzo E. Derchi from Genoa, Italy, who, as incoming ESR President, is in charge of ECR 2019. He told us about his plans and ideas for the next European Congress of Radiology.
ECR Today: Professor Derchi, next year’s European Congress of Radiology will be the 25th to be held in Vienna. Are there any specific celebrations planned that you can already share with us?
Lorenzo E. Derchi: We are still thinking about them. An anniversary like this is something more than an opportunity for a big celebration. It is the right moment to re-think our history and what we have reached over the years. To always have the congress in the same city since 1991, at first every other year and then, after 1999, annually, has been a radical change. The new formula proved successful and ECR has become the European meeting to come to in order to learn the latest clinical and technical advances in our discipline as well as to present the results of the previous year’s research.
In my experience, however, it has become much more. From 1991 up until today all congress chairpersons have been part of the same team in a relay race, each handing off the baton to the next one. This continuity can be felt in the special atmosphere at each meeting, and has allowed the congress to become the annual appointment to meet old friends and make new ones; to discuss any radiological topic and then to start working together on it; and finally a place to meet periodically to share problems, advancements and results of long-term projects.
ECRT: Were you here for the first ECR in Vienna in 1991? If not, when did you attend your first ECR? What do you recall from that visit?